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Slowed-Down Dolly Parton

Recently, the Internet discovered a slowed-down version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” that was posted on YouTube as “Slow Ass Jolene.”

Dolly Parton must be one of the only singers around whose voice could undergo such extreme manipulation and sound not sadly distorted but, rather, beautifully remade. Her baby-high soprano has always seemed slightly unreal anyway, a record played a little too fast. As it happens, one of her longtime stage stunts is mimicking a 45 r.p.m. record played at 78 r.p.m.: she goes into full Chipmunk mode, not missing a syllable or a wave of vibrato—an offhand joke at the expense of her own voice, as well as a flourishing exhibition of her impressive control of her instrument.

Parton, slowed to a speed at which most people would sound like gloopy, slothlike creatures, comes down to a reasonable alto range, sounding like a soulful male ballad singer. Every few comments on the “Slow Ass Jolene” YouTube page, someone questions whether the voice is actually Dolly’s. Maybe it seems unbelievable because her voice comes through so intact, and its expression is subtle enough to carry the song at this pace. Could Parton really be doing all that at the original speed? The word that commenters keep using to describe this version is “haunting”—a quality that seems appropriate to the vulnerability and fear in the lyrics. I had never noticed the line where the singer tells Jolene, “I had to have this talk with you / My happiness depends on you / And whatever you decide to do, Jolene.” The song’s not an imagined plea to a distant rival; it’s a depiction of an in-the-flesh confrontation, of one woman throwing herself at the mercy of another in the most blatant terms.

Of course, that can be found in the original version, but the brisk clip of the performance and the chime of Dolly’s voice bounce over the concreteness of the despair. That’s how Dolly Parton works, both as a musician and a celebrity. Many of her songs float lightly on dark currents—if you scan her compositions from the past fifty years, you’ll find plenty of dying children, abandoned women, and paralyzing poverty dished up in catchy tunes and warbling tones. “The old, sad songs,” she calls them. Even “I Will Always Love You” (lest we forget, a Parton composition long before Whitney), is both a love song and a breakup song.

And then there’s Parton herself, with breasts like launching missiles and the wardrobe of a seven-year-old with resources. She’s never tried to hide or apologize for her tackiness or her self-sculpting. “It costs a lot to look this cheap,” she likes to say. As she tells it, Dolly the multimillionaire and international star is a direct product of Dolly the little girl, who decided to model herself after the local hooker in the backwoods-Tennessee town where she grew up. She’s like an ambassador from a world where hard times make you stronger, but they’re still to be avoided; where you escape your past not by running away but by planting a ladder where you stand and climbing up.